South Pole Outhouses

At the south pole and at any other antarctic stations all waste is supposed to be removed from the continent. This is a stipulation of the antarctic treaty that gets a lot of attention here. This is because all that waste has to be separated into different recycling and waste containers. After this is done it gets loaded onto planes and boats to incinerated in Southern California or recycled.

Human waste is a  special consideration as it is heavy and potentially hazardous. Here at the south pole human waste is disposed of in two ways. The first is the rod-well system and the second are outhouses.

The elevated station and summer camp both use the rod-well system for both acquiring fresh water and disposing of sewage. A rod-well is a large bubble of melted snow and ice that is used for fresh water. Once a rod-well is exhausted (drained) a new rod-well is started and the old one starts getting filled with sewage. That is right, everything that goes down a sink, toilet or drain ends up form one big poopsicle in the ice. Given 10,000 years and it will reach the ocean.

Thankfully the polar plateau is a complete wasteland devoid of any life except for the handful of humans living here and any tiny creatures we bring with us. So it isn’t really a big deal. In fact it may someday be an archeological treasure.

The other way that human waste is dealt with here is using solar heated outhouses. This handy little wooden shacks keep a user relatively warm while they make their deposit into a barrel waiting below. The shacks use trombe walls that are painted black to harness the suns heat creating a heated building free of the expense of burning jet fuel. 

Many of the outhouses have a separate pee trough for the men. Made of sheet metal and a hose that leads outside to a barrel. Outside the material in the barrels freeze and are shipped off ice once they are full.

Sun Dogs

On Friday, January 8 people living at the south pole were given one of the most spectacular shows on earth. This is no circus rather it is atmospheric optics or sun dogs.  These are the rainbow rings and flares that form around the sun and even 180 degrees from the sun.

These great brilliant gems come about when the air is cold enough to cause ice crystals to form or when the wind picks up a lot of surface snow. As these crystals pass in front of the sun they bend and focus the light creating halos, flares and other peculiar light forms.

This particular sun dog was the best yet this season. It seemed like anybody who saw it stopped what they were doing to watch and see it is would form the famous 180 degree horizontal ring in the sky. Those who waited for it were treated with a horizontal ring and two others that were at an almost 45 degree angle to each side and criss crossed each other in the back to form a light X pattern.

This phenomenon is also called perihelion.

The world has a new south pole marker! At 6pm, Jan. 1, 2010 the new south pole maker was revealed. The design features the South pole telescope situated on top of a studded cube. Below that on an enlarged part of the shaft that sticks into the ice has the names of the winter over crew engraved on it.

The crowd of participants in the move made a large horse shoe shape and passed the marker to each other from the old marker to its new position about 30 feet away.

Because the south pole station is situated on a moving ice sheet nearly a mile thick, the pole marker must be moved each year so that it accurately marks the geographic south pole. 

The pole marker move was attended by large group of staff workers and a BBC camera crew recording footage for a new film called Frozen Planet.